A smallholder is trying to find out “who’s the daddy?” after one of her cows fell pregnant to a mystery, moonlighting lover.

Sam Crompton (38), from Whaplode, sold her red, short-legged Dexter called Jackie to a buyer in Reading – and within days had a surprise message back saying Jackie was five or six months pregnant.

Jackie the pregnant short-legged Dexter.

Sam, who runs the Lincs Farm Shop in High Road, told us: “I said she can’t be because she hasn’t been near a bull in two years.”

But there’s absolute proof from a vet that Jackie had a one-night stand – as she will calve in about three months time – and that’s left Sam with a mystery to solve.

Sam told us: “How this has happened I don’t know.

“The only conclusion I can come to is that five or six months ago I came down to find Jackie where she shouldn’t have been and my fencing trodden down.

Sam Crompton with a picture of Jackie the cow on her phone. SG260716-115TW

“A bull must have come here but where it’s come from I don’t know.”

Sam believes the nearest bull is at Whaplode St Catherine and drove there at the weekend to see if it was feasible for a bull to walk that distance looking for love.

“It’s two-and-half miles away,” said Sam. “Surely somebody must have seen something in the middle of the night?”

Although Sam has lost a little on the sale of Jackie – because the buyer is getting two for the price of one – it’s the mystery dad that’s bugging her more than any ‘udder’ thing.

She’s put out a “who’s the daddy?” plea on Facebook but came to the Spalding Guardian because she thought our readers might be the ones who would grass on the canoodling Casanova who put Jackie in the family way.

Sam has been a smallholder for about four years but decided to downsize, selling off her cows, because it was too much work coping with the animals and the busy shop, which sells a variety of fresh produce.

Jackie had been on the smallholding for two or three years.

“Now we have just got the two horses, a cat and a couple of dogs,” she said.

Sam has a partner, Chris Aedy, and children Sommer Jordan (12), Ryan Aedy (5) and Harrison Aedy, who is nearly two.

• Cows are pregnant for 283 days, just a little over nine months.

If you can help Jackie solve the daddy mystery, please call the Spalding Guardian newsroom on 01775 765413.